09 Feb Author Dermot Bolger visits Transition Year Students

The Coláiste Éanna Transition Years were very grateful to have been visited by celebrated author Dermot Bolger , whose novel New Town Soul has featured on the Leaving Certificate course for a number of years. As a Transition Year student, I was one of the lucky few to be at Dermot’s visit to our school.

On Monday 5th February Dermot came in and met the Transition Year classes in the library and spoke to us about how he came to be an author. He spoke about what life is like in that profession. It was interesting to hear about his childhood growing up in Finglas, on Dublin’s westside. He read The Hobbit in school and became enchanted by the book and so became interested in becoming an author at the age of 16.

Dermot told us all about his upbringing and family life and how his mother had died when he was very young. It was sad to hear that the first piece of writing which he had ever written was a letter to his mother, wishing her luck in an operation from which that she would never return. It was interesting to hear him say that being an author is not easy and that you have to be very creative. Dermot would often go years without being inspired to write a novel or poem but would then write a few in the space of a few weeks. We were very lucky to have been visited by Dermot Bolger and he was a very interesting guest to have in. Dermot seemed very nice and accessible.